by Bella Ward
Pypachi, who laid at Hamachi’s head, began to whimper. Odessa could not figure out why.
“Help me little man,” she cried, as magic flowed around them both.
Instinctively, the little pup belly crawled over to Odessa, climbing into her lap. She began to pray again in the deep magic as Pypachi himself began to glow red. The ancient tongue came from Odessa as she chanted a prayer. She knew was asking the deep magic to heal the man she wanted to live so desperately.
Before her eyes, the deep magic seeped into the wound of Hamachi’s side, causing it to close up. Odessa continued to put her magic in him as she closed her eyes, allowing her words to turn to whispers; then nothing at all as she mouthed the prayer. Finally, she went still altogether.
When she opened her eyes, she saw Hamachi sitting up in front of her. He was smiling as the last rays of red flowed back inside her.
“Hamachi,” she screamed as she hugged him, smashing the puppy between them.
“What happened?” he asked, still a bit groggy.
“Let’s get you to Hunundi to get checked out,” she smiled as she got to her feet. “I will tell you as we go.”
She helped him to his feet, slowly, as he winced in the slightest amount of pain. Odessa then threw her backpack over her back. They walked together to Hunundi’s hut, hoping he could shed some light on things. Odessa told him the story of what had happened as they walked. He couldn’t understand how she had performed the deep magic, and neither could she to be honest. The only thing she knew, was Pypachi had glowed red along with her. Perhaps, Pypachi was the item she needed to use to center herself to access the deep magic that was living inside her.
Chapter Fourteen
By the time they made it to Hunundi’s hut, Hamachi had gained all his strength back; although something none of them could explain began to close in on them. It was a feeling like none of them had felt before.
All around, other members of Camp Sacred Moon came out of their dwelling places with looks of fear on their faces. No one could explain what was happening.
Odessa and Hamachi ran up to Hunundi and the councilmen who were chanting over the dead hunter’s body.
“What’s going on?” Odessa shouted when the feeling worsened.
“This man has brought darkness with him,” Hunundi said through chants. “We don’t know how.”
“How could he come through the shield?” Hamachi asked.
“Young Hamachi,” Hunundi’s eyes crinkled as he looked at a healthy Hamachi.
He kept his hands hovering over the hunter’s body, which floated over a fire. The flames were a different color than the one Hunundi had the night he helped Odessa. The flames where deep orange, maroon, brown, and black.
“The deep magic helped me,” Odessa said, as concern flashed before her.
“You have your item?” Hunundi asked bewildered.
“I do,” she smiled.
“Then get in the circle,” he commanded her.
“Only elders find their item,” the councilman with the long, white beard protested.
“He parents were elders,” Hunundi spoke. “Love has brought the deep magic to her.”
“Very well,” the man said. “Join us young one.”
Odessa joined the circle of elders around the fire as they all hovered their hands, palm down, over the dead hunter who still rested over the flames. Pypachi rested on her right foot as he knew he was needed. It looked like the pup had doubled in size since the day she got him.
As if knowing what to say, Odessa began to chant with the elders, their auras mixing in red, orange, yellow, and white. Hamachi watched, wanting to help, but knew he did not have access to the deep magic. Nothing happened for the longest time as the dark feeling flooded the camp as if the shield had gone away.
Some of the people had shifted into wolves, while others stood around young children. All stood still, watching Hunundi, the members of the council, and Odessa pray over the fire.
Hamachi, out of desperation and the want to help, walked up behind Odessa and placed his hands on either side of her ribcage. He mustered all his magic as he pushed it into her, allowing his blue aura to mix with the others.
His magic must have been just enough to do what was needed. The dead hunter’s body began to jerk as a dark tattoo of sorts began to form on his body, mapping out the camp and its surroundings. The last thing to show up was a rune on the man’s hand. Once it became visible, the flames of the fire waned. The body of the hunter fell to the ground, sending each of the elders and Hamachi flying backwards.
They all fell to the ground. Hunundi was the only one to land on his feet. He quickly moved up to the man on the ground, taking his beads off as he fell on his knees to kneel next to the man.
Methodically, Hunundi wrapped the beads around the rune on the hand of the dead hunter. Once the beads were in place, Hunundi chanted a few words, allowing the beads to glow. The rune shown in the air above them all.
As if knowing what to do, Odessa threw a bit of magic at the rune, causing sparks of red and orange to bounce off it.
“What is it?” Hamachi asked.
“It is a rune of some kind,” Odessa breathed, as she strengthened her magic, keeping it on the image in the air. “It needs to be broken, so that we know what it means.”
Hamachi began to throw magic at the image in the sky, followed by the remaining elders in the circle. Before them, the rune busted open, sending sparks down to where Hunundi stood. They fell on him, seeping into his beads, much like the tornado had seeped into the amulet Odessa was wearing the night she got her magic back.
Hunundi took the beads off the man and put them around his neck. Realization hit his eyes as he spun around to address the people.
“We are in danger,” Hunundi spoke. “When this man was killed,” he pointed to the dead hunter, “we brought him inside the shield to find out why he was so close to camp.”
“What does this mean?” the councilman with long, brown hair asked.
“The hunter was covered in dark magic,” Hunundi began. “The rune on his body was a reverse spell, meaning that when we brought his body inside the boundaries to examine it, the rune broke the protection shield in all areas of camp,” he paused. “All of the darkness you are feeling is the sixth tribe and it’s hunters descending on us.”
Chapter Fifteen
Each member of camp was instructed by Hunundi and The Council to protect the parts of camp where each of them worked and resided. The darkness and hunters were sure to fall on them sooner than later. Odessa, Hamachi, and Pypachi ran as fast as they could through the woods and valley towards the refuge. They needed to tell the shifters working the night shift there, and try to protect the wolves if they could.
The dark, oily feeling of the shadow was everywhere. It didn’t matter where they were, they felt the desperate primal need to protect their people. Odessa got to the door of the refuge first, followed by Hamachi. They ran in and told the nightshift manager what was happening.
A call was made to camp, and within minutes the entire refuge was in an uproar, sending many of the shifters running back to camp to protect their families. In the end, Hamachi, Odessa, and around ten others were left to defend the wolves.
Something told Odessa the older wolves would fight with them, but the lack of magic inside them would make them valuable to the darkness and easy to turn. Holding Pypachi, she steadied herself as she let the deep magic build in her. Hamachi took her hand, giving her a little of his own magic to strengthen her. She chanted a protection spell over the wolves, hoping the dose of magic would help them stay loyal. She felt they would be on their side.
The man who had sent Pypachi home with Odessa was one of the others who stayed to protect the refuge. He looked at Pypachi knowingly. Somehow, he recognized the pup, despite the growth spurt he had taken. Pypachi was now nearly half the size of a full-grown wolf. She hadn’t noticed.
Hamachi, and Odessa, along with Pypachi ran towards the pup e
nclosure to check on them. When they got to the outside housing area, the darkness of the night had gotten even darker. Not the physical darkness of course, but the deep, dark, evil feeling of the shadow had slithered its way around them.
“We need to get the pups in!” Hamachi shouted towards Odessa as a stale hot wind picked up around them.
They each began to haul in puppies to safety, all the while watching for anything to change. Odessa felt herself collecting her magic in the pit of her stomach, and could feel Hamachi doing the same.
Pypachi kept up with Odessa the entire time, but the wind was causing him to stumble as it picked up, making it hard for him to walk and the puppies to breathe. Despite Odessa telling him to stay in the building, Pypachi would not leave her side. On their last trip inside with puppies Odessa looked out to see large objects blowing in the wind.
“Do you think that’s it?” he asked as they looked over the pups.
“I think so,” Odessa said, as she took survey of the pups she had been working with. “Francesca? Where is Francesca?”
“I don’t see her,” Hamachi confirmed.
“Keep Pypachi in here,” Odessa said to him. “I will go find her and bring her in.”
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“Yes,” she smiled. “Now hold onto my dog.”
She laughed as Hamachi held onto Pypachi. The ever-growing pup growled and fought to go with her as she went through the purifier and outside to find Francesca.
Odessa looked franticly for the pup, but couldn’t find her. She looked in all the play areas, the housing unit, and even on the other side where Hamachi worked with his pups, but she was nowhere. Odessa had started to give up hope when something caught her attention out of the corner of her eye.
The little fuzzball was nestled under a pile of blankets, under a turned over basket. Odessa’s hair blew all over as she made her way towards the puppy to take her to safety. When she got to her, she noticed the pup was shivering. She picked Francesca up and let a little of her magic seep into her before Odessa took her inside. She could feel the mood of the female wolf pup change as she warmed up and let the magic in.
Odessa had wrapped her in a blanket and turned to take her in, when someone walked in front of her. It was the same scar faced hunter that had killed her parents thirteen years before.
Chapter Sixteen
The vile man stood between Odessa and her way in. He looked at her through evil, red eyes as he glanced at Francesca like she was something to eat. Odessa wished she had let Pypachi come out with her. She knew she could access her deep magic with him, but didn’t know what to do without him.
She though to yell for Hamachi, but didn’t want to draw attention to the situation. An oily feeling flooded around her as she could feel the shadow fall on the scene that had chased her for her entire childhood.
“You can’t hurt me now!” Odessa screamed in the direction she knew the darkness was residing. “I have my magic now!”
“It might not be able to hurt you,” the man spit on the ground, “but I can.”
He took a step for her, as a collection of evil looking men and women stepped out of the woods around the refuge. Odessa didn’t know what to do. She surely could not take all of them, and certainly not in her human form without Pypachi.
Suddenly, a huge, black, and grey wolf burst through the glass and attacked the man who had killed her parents from behind. The worker who had sent Pypachi home with her, scurried out and took Francesca from Odessa.
She watched the fight between the hunter and Hamachi as the other evil dark hunters continued to come closer and closer. More and more wolves burst through the glass. Some of them she knew were the adult wolves housed in the facility, but others were shifters, as they were nearly double the size of the wild born wolves.
The hunter fighting Hamachi was losing, which sent a sick satisfying feeling down Odessa’s spine. She knew she couldn’t live in the moment as anything not deemed light and good would allow the shadows in.
Hamachi, the wolf, glanced in the direction of Odessa, left the hunter he had been attacking, and jumped over her head. She looked behind her, and to her surprise, a hunter had come incredibly close to Odessa from behind her.
The new victim left the hunter who had killed her parents standing in front of Odessa, nursing his wounds. She allowed the feelings of fear and dread to be replaced by anger. She felt her aura heating up, but also knew her magic alone would not kill the man. She looked around for Pypachi, but he was nowhere in sight. She worried for him, and hoped he was safe. Odessa also saw Hamachi fighting two hunters at once. The fear replaced by anger caused her cheeks to get warmer and warmer as she glared at the man standing in front of her.
“I killed your mother and father,” the snake said. “I will kill you, too.”
Odessa didn’t know how the man knew it was her parents he had killed, as he had never seen her before.
“That’s not going to happen,” she shouted as the cool red that danced around her turned darker.
“Your magic can’t kill me,” he said through a smile of missing teeth.
“I know that, but I can,” she growled through swirls of red and wind. Odessa shifted into a great, pure black wolf.
The man looked at her, shocked. He had not felt the wolf in her until that point. Truth be told, she had not felt the wolf either until that point.
The anger in her ignited the magic that brought forth her wolf. She jumped in the air and, in one swift move, broke the man’s neck. She turned to see that Hamachi had witnessed what had happened, as he had two dead hunters laying at his feet. Together they ran around, taking one hunter after another.
They circled the refuge and even parts of the valley as they saw shifters and wolves fighting hunters everywhere. Odessa couldn’t believe that only a few weeks before, she was a not so normal foster kid that didn’t know where she belonged. Even as a huge dog, killing people that she didn’t know existed beside the man…wolf she loved, she felt a sense of belonging. How could she have missed her purpose the entire time? Dwelling on it would do no good as she sunk her teeth into a hunter about to hurt a young girl from the camp. The hunter went down screeching before Odessa finished him off all together.
The battle raged for hours as more and more hunters came.
The end looked like it was nowhere in sight as more shadows brought more hunters to the valley, which ended up being their battleground. Some of the members of camp were laying on the ground as Odessa and Hamachi passed them. They hoped they would live.
Hunundi’s wolf ran up to Odessa and Hamachi in wolf form as Pypachi scurried up next to her. They didn’t know where he had come from, but Odessa was happy to see that he was alive.
Something happened suddenly, when the shadows connected. They became visible as a black smog landed on the earth, causing near zero visibility for everyone around.
The black darkness caused a wind to pick up that began sucking the air from the lungs of everyone on the battle field, even the hunters. Realizing the darkness had planned on killing them as well, the hunters quit fighting the shifters and began swatting at the smog with their hands and weapons with no use.
The darkness fully intended on killing each of them. As the air continued to drain from Odessa’s lungs, she shifted back to human form and reached for Hunundi and Hamachi, as Pypachi made his way over to her through the deafening wind and sat on her foot. A milky white aura, mixed with red and blue turned purple, swirled around them making a vortex where the four could breathe.
Hamachi and Hunundi shifted back into human form, as Hunundi and Odessa began to chant in unison, neither of them knowing what they were saying. Hunundi lifted his hand to the sky as he chanted again and again. In the middle of the black storm, Hunundi pulled his beads from over his neck and placed them on Hamachi, who then began to chant the words of the deep magic. The beads lost their milky white hue, replaced by the transparent blue aura of Hamachi. Hamachi and Odessa joined hands
with Hunundi between them. Pypachi laid on Odessa’s foot with a red aura around him, while the beads glowed blue around Hamachi’s neck. Hunundi reached up with both hands as he dematerialized and vanished, with wafts of white smoke floating up to the sky.
The second the remains of Hunundi’s spirt disappeared, a purple burst of light broke through the darkness as a light exploded all around them.
Chapter Seventeen
Odessa and Hamachi parted hands, exhausted from the use of such strong magic. Hunter’s bodies laid strewn around as they had died the instant the explosion happened. The darkness that was once black and visible evaporated into nothingness. All shifters and wolves stood gasping for air as the chocking darkness was no longer suffocating them.
Everyone looked around wondering what had happened. A strange purple haze settled into the ground all around them as they wondered themselves what had happened.
Hamachi stepped forward and stood to address the people. Shifters from all around were turning back to human form as people noticed Hunundi’s beads that were around Hamachi’s neck. They shouted questions, but as soon as he lifted his hand, the whole of the shifters silenced awaiting his words.
“Hunundi has left us,” he began as the people gasped. “He gifted me his beads and as the deep magic flowed through Odessa and I, the sacrifice of Hunundi caused the deep magic to bless the grounds, thus saving us all from the darkness.”
“Is the darkness dead?” one of the shifters asked.
“We do not know,” Odessa said, as she stood beside Hamachi.
He looked at her sweetly, thankful for her help.
“All we know is that the hunters are dead,” he said, “and the darkness is gone.”
“I say we reassemble the council and come up with a plan as to what we should do next,” Odessa suggested.
